Art

Sam Conant – more commonly known as Cones – is a staple in the hip-hop space. Throughout his decade in the game, the music photographer has amassed quite the collection of photos – concert, candid, and everything in between – of the new age of hip-hop talent. Cones has compiled some of the highlights into his first-ever photo book: a 328-page offering entitled Happy To Be Here.Between 2014 and 2023, Cones flicked up some of the most prominent figures in the rap ether, including of Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, Lil Tecca, A$AP Rocky, Metro Boomin, Post Malone and Offset – who all appear in the pages of Happy To Be Here. “Although the photos captured in Happy To Be Here document my time spent chasing down hip-hop icons over the past decade as I found my footing in the industry, this book is r...

At Tai Kwun Contemporary, Tao Hui opens the doors to his cabinet of curiosities that is In the Land Beyond Living, now on view until February 2, 2025. Through painting, video, sculpture and sound, the Beijing-based artist renders a world of struggle through his signature, absurdist approach. From migrant workers in booming cities to the nouveau riche socialites with a spiritual hunger, he hunts for new ways to make sense out of conflicting, complex realities.For Hui’s first institutional foray in Hong Kong, the exhibition features five newly-commissioned installations alongside other recent works. Central to the exhibition is “Chilling Terror Sweeps the North,” an immersive video installation housed with a semi-opaque, paneled structure. Blending dreams and reality, the film’s surrealist t...

To the boomers, digital art was largely confined to 8-bit Atari graphics or that Metal Gear Solid video game they regrettably purchased for their kids. Today, however, the medium has skyrocketed past its early childlike associations to be incorporated in almost every function of daily life — from simple emoji avatars and virtual reality programs to the infinitely manipulatable capabilities found in Photoshop and artificial intelligence.London's Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has released a new book that chronicles the growth of digital art from its early beginnings in the 1960s to the present. Written and edited by curators Pita Arreola, Corinna Gardner and Melanie Lenz, the publications draws from the V&A's extensive archives to trace the work of mathematicians, computer animato...

Two screenprints from Andy Warhol’s 1985 Reigning Queens series have been stolen, and the other two destroyed, from a gallery in the Netherlands during a botched robbery. Last Friday morning, residents of Oisterwijk were shaken by the sound of an explosion. CCTV footage captured the thieves blasting open the doors of MPV Gallery and swiping the pieces from the walls, though to their surprise, the artworks didn’t fit in their car.Police have since recovered the getaway vehicle and detained one suspect, though they are still seeking witnesses as their investigation continues. “It is appalling,” gallery owner Mark Peet Visser shares with the Art Newspaper. “It is also unprofessional for a criminal to work like this, with explosives that are far too heavy and a getaway car that is too small fo...

As the clash between dairy and non-dairy camps rages on, both sides can recognize the upper lips featured in MilkPEP’s iconic got milk? campaign. Through the 90s and 00s, photos of celebrities sporting thin, white mustaches dominated our cultural consciousness, but even though the campaign successfully took over commercials and cafeterias across the country, consumers are becoming increasingly reluctant toward milk’s once-promising health benefits.The campaign’s two-word question plays a significant role in Jens Settergren’s sensorial installation at Viborg Kunsthal. Through a suite of sleek LED simulations, Milk Plus follows the aesthetic journey of dairy marketing and its contributions to a tech-mediated body. Here, the Danish artist constructs a sci-fi world of his own. In a storm of bl...

Altman Siegel is showcasing a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Troy Lamarr Chew II, now on view through December 21, 2024. For his second show with the gallery, the Los-Angeles based artist, best known for his realist paintings, confronts Eurocentric traditions of Black exclusion with an iridescent invisibility.Chew summons a new suite of paintings that reimagine his close friends and family as invisible, bringing a well-deserved spotlight to a cast of unsung heroes. While each figure is composed with assiduous precision, there is something missing: in place of skin is a distorted refraction of their immediate surroundings – the clothes they wear and their places of work.The series was inspired by his experience as a driver in San Francisco, though it was through this lacking vi...

Saatchi Gallery is set to debut ADAPTATION, the first major survey of contemporary photographer Anastasia Samoylova. The exhibition chronicles the trajectory of the rising star, presenting works from her most celebrated series spanning the 2010s through today.Born in Russia and now based in Florida, Samoylova finds inspiration in the many meanings of “adaptation" to summon a suite of images that feel of the moment and timeless at once. Dancing between observational photography and studio practice, the artist confronts a rapidly changing planet with tender captures of life as it is lived.Thick with provocation, Samoylova’s work exhibits a critical understanding of both aesthetics and social critique. Guiding audiences through the “seductive tropical palette” of Miami, sharp and stark landsc...

Walk down the street in any metropolitan city and you'll likely find someone, many in fact, who are talking into their phones, abruptly breaking in-and-out of character as if their digital lives take precedent over reality. This premise serves as one of the central focuses of American artist and writer Jibade-Khalil Huffman. Born in Detroit and currently based in Los Angeles, Huffman is currently exhibiting a new solo exhibition entitled Control at Anat Ebgi gallery, revealing a new series of film installations, inkjet collages and his first-ever screen-printed works. Huffman has long been fascinated with doppelgängers and reinvention in the face of trauma. Using today's social and political climate as his subject matter, IRL features two performers, who over the course of three hours, act...

British artist Nigel Howlett reunites with Case Studyo in a wooden edition entitled Silence. Based in London, Howlett is known for creating haunting paintings and sculptures depicting featureless subjects that probe into presence and absence.Silence is currently on view as part of Ojiri Gallery's group exhibition, Not Invited!, a surreal showcase that explores the contradictory natures of the human experience. Visually akin to The Ring's (2002) eerie antagonist, Samara Morgan, Howlett's ghostly figures tempt audiences to reexamine their surroundings, both domestic and urban, to reflect on stillness, solitude and "the balance between isolation and connection in a fast-paced world," explains Case Studyo. "I like to get in close on the subject and often have a movie lens in mind," Howlett pre...

Argentine-Spanish artist Felipe Pantone and his team have launched a relief initiative to aid communities by the devastating floods that ravaged Valencia, Spain. After a year’s worth of rain hit the city in just one day, killing at least 217 people, artists from around the globe have come together to raise relief funds.The idea behind Auction for Action came to Pantone after his own studio was wrecked by the DANA storm, however, none of the donations will go toward restoring the studio. Instead, the artist and his team are working directly with local organizations and recovery efforts, like the Coloring the World Foundation, to ensure that the donations reach the most affected areas.Ranging from just €300 EUR ($323 USD) to tens of thousands, the auction’s current gamut features works by ar...

The 20th century was filled with artistic movements that continue to shape the world today. Amongst them, Pop Art heralded a paradigm shift on both sides of the Atlantic, replacing religious, mythological and historical themes with widespread iconography, from advertisements and merchandise to celebrities and everyday commercial branding as the central topics of discourse.On view at Paris' Fondation Louis Vuitton is a new group exhibition that celebrates the confluence of art and pop culture, surveying the origins of Pop Art and how the movement persists with today's cultural luminaries. Central to the show is the work of Tom Wesselmann, who for over 60 years explored the sensuality and eroticism of American life, such as in The Great American Nude Series (1961-1973). "With no manifesto an...